Page 9 of Property of Prowler (Kings of Anarchy MC: Nevada #1)

“She’s not exaggerating,” Prowler quipped. Taylor’s cheeks were on fire. She wasn’t on board with the whole setup vibe of the night, but neither was she ready to be embarrassed.

“No wonder she’s not having any. She pranked us.” Cass was obviously joking. Prowler’s laughter joined his daughters. That took a little sting out of it, but not all.

“I followed the recipe to the letter. It took me forever to track down carob, which I’d never even heard of.

” She crossed her arms over her chest like a petulant child.

It didn’t escape her notice that Prowler’s gaze dropped to her cleavage almost instantly.

Good. It’s hard to laugh when distracted.

“That’s the problem. You followed a recipe, which I can only assume was written by hippies in a commune in the mid-seventies.”

“I don’t get it. What do hippies have to do with anything?”

Taylor didn’t have a clue what Prowler meant by that.

“What is fu…” Cass looked over the top of her phone with a raised eyebrow. “Fudging carob?” Cass whispered as she typed. If the vegan didn’t know, then Taylor definitely went wrong somewhere.

“According to the internet, it’s a flowering evergreen shrub in the subfamily of a legume.” She reads more before proclaiming. “It’s supposedly like chocolate, but dogs can eat it.”

With that announcement, she grabbed her plate and stood. “Let’s skip dessert next time if you wanna feed us dog chocolate.”

Taylor was powerless to hold back her laughter.

“I second that,” Prowler agreed.

“Ouch, shots fired.” Taylor gripped her chest where the imaginary wound was. “But valid. Agreed, no more carob.”

“I’m going to call it a night and go listen to music in my room.” With that, Cass winked, freaking winked, and in the same manner as her dad, no less. After dropping her plate in the sink, Cass slid her headphones from her neck to her ears. “Loudly.” She added and disappeared into her room.

Once gone, Prowler reached for Taylor’s arms, which were still crossed over her chest. He interlaced their fingers and rested their joined hands on the table.

“Thanks for trying with Cass. It means a lot … to her.” The last two words sounded like an afterthought. Like it meant a lot to him, but he chose not to reveal that.

She wished.

“Of course, you know I adore her.”

Prowler’s inhale was audible. “And to me. It means a lot to me too.” The way he said it was forced but sincere. Almost as if voicing gratitude was foreign to him.

Taylor just smiled and cleared the table.

She didn’t do well with emotions, especially unexpected ones … and from the man she’d fallen for when she’d promised she wouldn’t.

She started rinsing and loading the dishes to keep from blurting out, I think I kinda love you, and Cass thinks you’re a werewolf.

Strong, tattooed arms wrapped around her from behind, removing the plate from her hand and setting it in the sink.

“What? No, of course I adore you too , for me?”

“You know you’re too handsome for your own good.” She turned in his embrace to face him. “Look at you. Do you really need your ego stroked that much?”

“Too handsome for my own good, huh?”

Taylor rolled her eyes.

Dipping his head, he nibbled her neck in that perfect spot again. He seemed to be fascinated with it, and she didn’t mind. Fuck, the man knew how to turn her bones into jelly.

“Besides, the thought of you stroking anything of mine is fucking appealing.”

“Ugh.” She pushed him away gently and turned to finish the dishes.

Taylor was flustered … he flustered her. She needed to talk to him about Cass without exactly talking to him about Cass and what she thought.

Sadly, that was the second thing on her to-do list that seemed almost impossible. Especially with his lips on her neck or when he was doing domestic shit. Like rinsing dishes as he was now.

Gazing to the side, she watched the movement of his tattooed forearms, and he waved the plate under the stream of water.

Something about a sexy biker doing what old white men called women’s work was sexy as fuck.

Taylor didn’t realize she was staring at him with her mouth agape until Prowler pulled the soapy dessert plate from her iron grip with a grin. His other hand lifted her bottom jaw with a single finger.

Shamelessly, she took one step aside and just watched him finish the dishes by himself.

Taylor unabashedly appreciated the scene before her. She thought the man looked fine as hell in his cut and thick-soled boots. Black Henley underneath, looking every inch the stereotypical outlaw.

However, there was a lot to be said about him without the cut or boots.

His bare feet poked out from the bottom of his jeans.

There wasn’t a woman alive who wouldn’t appreciate the way his shirt clung to his muscles, but when he’d pushed those sleeves up his arms?

Damn if he didn’t jump fifty points on the fuck me, daddy meter.

What was on her to-do list again?

At some point, Prowler finished the dishes by himself and pulled her into his arms. “Should we take this down the hall?”

Down the hall?

Yes, wait, no.

“But …” Shit, she wanted to forget why she was supposed to protest, at least for the next hour or so.

“Cassidy.” Her name trailed off as Prowler nipped his way across her collarbone. Fuck, why was she making excuses? She should either get on with it or enjoy one last night of passion before she ended things.

“What about her?” He spoke between kisses and nips and kisses and nips. “Did you not get the memo that this was a setup?”

Kisses and nips. Fuck, his mouth was fire, leaving a trail of scorched skin in its wake.

“And we don’t want to disappoint her, do we?” The humor in his voice almost overpowered the lust … almost.

Taylor couldn’t help but smile. Giving in to at least a little heavy petting, she stroked her hands up his chest under his shirt.

An animalistic growl escaped his lips. That roughness in his voice practically stroked her clit and erased her memory.

There was a reason she needed to say no, or at least press pause, but for the life of her, she couldn’t recall it.

Actually, she could remember; she just chose to have selective memory … just for tonight.

“But … but what if she?—”

“Hears?” He pulled back to ask. Taylor was only capable of nodding before he tossed her over his shoulder and strode down the hall. “Headphones, loud, remember?”

Right, so Cassidy was taken care of. But something else, or multiple something elses, weren’t. With his lips off her, reason returned. She really should rip it off like a Band-Aid and end the intimate nature of their relationship.

But Taylor was realizing that when it came to Prowler, she was selfish. She wanted more, and since she couldn’t have more, she’d take tonight. No guilt, no heartbreak. Just a beautiful goodbye to the way things had been.

When he deposited her on his bed with a bounce and ripped his shirt over his head, a moan escaped her lips. That’s what she needed to get out of her head and enjoy this last night of mind-blowing sex.

While it would be so much more for her.

She leaned up on her elbows and cataloged the play of every muscle as he stripped down to nothing.

The only distraction was the sound of a marble or two hitting the floor.

She made a mental note to ask him why he carried them but was distracted when his cock jumped.

Fuck if he wasn’t a goddamn fictional character.

Ropes of muscle under gallons of ink. Muscles that flexed as he took the few steps to the foot of the bed in slow motion, like he was prowling.

Prowler prowling. She barely stifled her laugh.

Taylor’s eyes swept down his body to his feet, which again she found attractive, and she hated feet. It was strange how she viewed Prowler through a different lens from all other men.

Maybe that’s why she’d fallen for him. She removed the goggles that protected her from the heartbreak she’d donned after Billy.

When he was mere inches from the mattress, he stopped and held his arms out. “Like what you see, babe?” Taking a step back, he stood there with zero shame as she drank in his body.

Hell yeah, she liked what she saw, a little too much. Continuing her perusal, her gaze slowly rose up to his thighs, which were thick and defined. There was a furrow that ran down the outside and curved inward. Whatever muscle that outlined, it was sexy as hell.

While his thighs distracted her for a moment, it was what was just north of there that demanded her attention.

Prowler’s delicious … and highly addictive … cock.

As beautiful a sight as it was, standing proud and primed, she wanted to see all of him … remember all of him.

A spin of her finger was all it took for him to do exactly what that slutty little voice in her head wanted.

“Damn that ass.”

When he flexed his hard cheeks, she realized she’d spoken aloud.

He turned back around and lazily stroked his cock while staring at her with his oh-so-blue eyes.

A team of the top sculptors in the world, working around the clock for a decade, could try to sculpt a perfect specimen of a man from marble, and it still wouldn’t hold a candle to Prowler.

“I think you’re a little overdressed for the occasion.”

Before the last syllable left his mouth, she’d pulled the shirt over her head and wiggled out of her pants.

Her mind came back online unbidden.

Sadness washed over her when she remembered, once again, that this was their last time.

A goodbye fuck.

She would miss so much about them . One of the things was the comfortable and comical nature of their intimacy. She’d never had that.

Hell, if she had laughed about anything when her ex was naked, he would have lost his shit thinking she was laughing at him. Prowler wasn’t insecure like that, and that alone was a turn on.

Taylor would give anything to continue on as they were, but she was in too deep. The neighbors-with-benefits arrangement had run its course.

Relationships with caps had a limited run time. They should be categorized more as entanglements.